To the editor, At the July 28 West Milford Council meeting Arthur McQuaid, during the public comment session, called the West Milford Sunshine Act a “moronic” and “idiotic” piece of legislation. I disagree. This Act is about good government, accountability and transparency. First, opponents of this Act claim this is not about open government as it is about raising taxes so a few people can harass the town by purchasing copies of public records at five cents per page. Apparently, opponents of the West Milford Sunshine Act wish to keep the copying price where it is 75 cents per page to discourage “harassment” by citizens who seek to meaningfully participate in their government. Public records are created by public employees who have been paid with taxpayer funds. Since taxpayers pay for the creation of these records, they ought to be able to purchase copies of them for what it costs the town to produce them. If stores such Staples and Office Depot can profit by charging 7 cents a copy, it stands to reason that the township can recover its paper, toner and other incidental costs by charging five cents a copy. Second, opponents of the West Milford Sunshine Act state that the provisions of the Act which requires posting public records, such as minutes and resolutions on the Internet will take “hundreds of man hours” and could cost the township hundreds of thousands of dollars.” This is nonsense. Almost all records of the Act requires to be posted are already in computer-readable form. All that needs to be done is to upload them to an Internet site. Moreover, the township has already uploaded many of the categories of records the Act requires, such as minutes, resolutions and ordinances to www.westmilford.org. If posting public documents to the Web is such an expensive and arduous proposition, why has the township already posted so many records? Lastly, opponents of the Act take issue with a provision requiring the township to reimburse the legal fees and litigation costs of citizens who have to go to court to enforce the Act. Opponents of this Act apparently do not know that such attorney “fee-shifting” provisions are neither wrong nor unusual but are included within many laws, such as the Consumer Fraud Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Open Public Records Act, to name a few. In a 2005 case, the New Jersey Supreme Court explained why it is important for the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) and other open-government enactments to contain a fee-shifting provision: “Without the OPRA fee-shifting provision, the ordinary citizen would be waging a quixotic battle against a public entity vested with almost inexhaustible resources. By making the custodian of the government record responsible for the payment of counsel fees to a prevailing requestor, the Legislature intended to even the fight” (See NJDPM v. DOC, 185 N.J. 137, 153 (2005). Absent some civil enforcement mechanism, such as a fee-shifting provision, the average citizen will be unable to afford the legal costs necessary to force the township to follow the Act’s other provisions. Would Mr. McQuaid and our opponents prefer this Act not be enforced or that only the wealthy have means to enforce it? I encourage all voters to read the full text of the West Milford Sunshine under the “resources” tab at www.njsunshinelaw.com. The Act will bring much more transparency to West Milford government. Secondly, this Act may even save taxpayers money by allowing citizens to obtain records from the Internet instead of taking time from the town clerk’s office to forage for public records. Lastly, this Act will also call attention to waste and inefficiencies that may have otherwise gone undetected. Jim Geist West Milford